Saturday, January 31, 2015

By now most of you have heard about GoDaddy's #Puppygate controversy this week. It was quite something to experience from inside, and see how the right culture can make a huge difference in how you react to mistakes. In fact, it was quite a throwback to an older blog post I had made on this very same topic. So, instead of finger pointing and rolling heads, the GoDaddy team listened, regrouped, and decided on a set of constructive next steps starting with a statement by our CEO Blake Irving within hours on the same day.

Also, I am personally happy that in the process, many people who didn't know much about the plight of some puppies got a much better understanding of the realities involved with breeding as pointed out by this animal advocate on Huffington Post.

Now let's see what tomorrow has in store for Superbowl and its advertisers!

May the nimblest team with the right culture towards mistakes and experimentation win!!!

Sunday, March 30, 2014

In the startup world, we have come to appreciate the power of empirical evidence, A/B tests and data-driven decision making. We strongly expect (even outright assume) that our startup founders, leaders and decision makers ground their leadership decisions on hard, solid data (as opposed to personal whims, dreams or anecdotal tales). At the same time, being proactive has always been a prized leadership skill. But if we define "being proactive" as the ability to address a problem or opportunity before there is data about that problem or opportunity, it seems irrational to demand from someone to be proactive and data driven at the same time!

I was confronted with this dilemma last week while discussing the implications of a new feature release with a product team. The aforementioned release would introduce some changes that could potentially make a small percentage of the existing user base of the product unhappy. But no one really knew the size or the extent of unhappiness caused here. Should the product team be proactive and try to fix the problem by delaying the launch, or instead, be agile and launch immediately, only to react to problems if and when they arise afterwards? What if one hour after the release, one user voices very strong dissatisfaction with the release. Do you roll back the release or wait until you receive complaints from at least x% of your users before you decide to do something about it?

I think there are 2 keys to resolving this dilemma in any organizational setting: (1) Clear Product Vision, and (2) Personal Experience. A clear product vision in the organization enables everyone involved to make proactive decisions by prioritizing those decisions against the furtherance of that overarching vision. If the organizational product vision is to provide the "best customer service in ecommerce", for instance, then the decision on whether or not to argue over a customer's desire to return a merchandise can be easily made without having to make elaborate calculations about the impact of the decision. Personal experience, on the other hand, enables the decision maker to spot trends early on and extrapolate inferences from limited data sets that may not, in and of themselves, be statistically significant.

So it seems quite important for the leadership in a startup to recognize the inherent dilemma between data-driven decision making and proactive leadership and to take steps to ensure that there is a clear product vision driving the organization forward, while at the same time leveraging prior experience of team members, advisers or consultants in making inferences from past data.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

I started this post to share some reflections on a classic Depeche Mode song (Get the Balance Right) and how it says a lot about entrepreneurship in its quirky satirical way, but my (evidently unbalanced) subconscious took me back to a startup Board interaction I had recently witnessed. So now I am compelled to share that story instead:

I painfully saw how an entrepreneur who had obviously spent many days of his invaluable startup time researching an answer to a prior Board request get slammed by a Board member for doing so. This is not because the data the entrepreneur had painstakingly uncovered was bad, statistically insignificant or irrelevant, but because the data was ANSWERING THE WRONG QUESTION.

As entrepreneurs we face a million questions a day that cannot wait to be answered. Answering each one takes time and effort away from answering the others, and in may times, raises even more questions. It is imperative that we truly understand the initial question we are trying to answer before spending efforts to answer it.

Here is a process I would follow to see if you've got the question right:

Repeat the question out loud (even if it is you)

Imagine the best and worst answers to the question

Would the answer have any actionable implications?

If not, ask the inquiror about purpose of question

Repeat steps above until everyone believes there is a question worth answering with a clear, actionable purpose that it achieves
This may seem like a lot to do, but it is a lot less effort than the wasted efforts spent on answering the wrong question (not to mention the demoralizing prospect upon finding out).

Ignore all user feedback on product, from support inquiries to social media and BBB postings

Miss your 83(b) 30-day filing deadlines

If your Board forgets to grant options, go back and re-do it after the fact

Send an email to everyone on your contact list asking for investment in your startup

If any of the above sounds remotely like something you may have considered doing, please, please, please don't do it! You are in desperate need of immediate help, so talk to someone who knows a bit about startup law today.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Here is a presentation I gave to a bunch of very smart founders and entrepreneurs at Founder Institute tonight, drawing on my past 14 years of experience in Silicon Valley. It was so fortuitous to give this presentation at Wilson Sonsini, the place where I started my Valley career as a lonely Associate in 1999.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Something that a lot of good parents know is that you gotta let your kids make mistakes. In fact, that's the only way they can learn and grow as confirmed by years of research in developmental psychology (see, e.g., Remember, Mistakes are for Learning). It's no different for adults either. Nonetheless, when we as entrerpeneurs are in the midst of startup activity, with all the confidence, optimism and forward-looking stamina in the world, we tend to try to brush the mistakes aside (if not under a rug) and move on. Who's got time for all that when you are trying to disrupt the course of mankind?

Problem is, without learning from mistakes we are bound to... you know the rest. So, how do we reconcile the desire to rapidly move forward while also learning from mistakes?

The magic solution to this dilemma is in that elusive notion of "startup culture" that I have been referring to many times in this blog. If your culture is one in which mistakes are punished and viewed as shameful and reflective of your worth as a team member, or worse, human being, good luck to you. You will be chasing your tail to infinity.

On the other hand, a culture that welcomes mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow from tends to be one in which not only innovative ideas find roots, but also find the optimal path(s) to grow among the many good and bad possibilities. Our attitude towards mistakes is what determines our ability to learn from them. Again, there is ample research data to confirm these in case you are interested (see, e.g., )

There are no simple fixes, but there are ways all of us can shift our
thinking about mistakes. Starting with our children, we can emphasize
effort and deemphasize results. We can appreciate that we -- and they --
can't be perfect, nor is it a goal we should aim for. We should strive
to do our best, but if the prize is ever-elusive perfection, then the
fear of failure will too often overshadow the willingness to experiment,
take risks and challenge ourselves. We should be careful of the
contradictory message that it's all right to make mistakes but not where
it counts...

Assuming you have bought into the idea that it is better to learn from mistakes than to shove them under the rug, here are some practical steps you can take in that direction when encountering a mistake (be it a bug in your release, catching spelling errors in your expensive ad campaign, misplacing an important document, etc):

1. Always be grateful when a mistake is found. Catching it later would have been worse at the least.
2. Express your gratitude and make sure your body language confirms that.
3. Don't focus on who is responsible, but for what went wrong.
4. Shed light on the situation in a collaborative, problem solving session focused on learning
5. Brainstorm on ways to catch that kind of mistake earlier in the future
6. Focus on learnings and action plan moving forward

Monday, July 01, 2013

To have a productive, enriching and fulfilling life, many psychologists (as well as coaches, gurus, athletes, performers, ...) recommend incorporating as much "flow activities" into your life as possible. Flow activities are basically those in which you immerse yourself willingly and totally, and emerge from them with a continued sense of achievement (e.g., learning an instrument or new language).

To find flow in your hobbies is just a preview of what is possible. The basic concepts of flow can be (and for your sake, should be) extended to our personal as well as professional life. But how do we do that? To me, it is all about our personal approach and perspective (Weltanschauung) on life. In fact, the answer seems to be hiding in plain view, at the intersection of two questions about the most ancient human mental and physical activities:

1) Is life more like a game of chess (predictable, deterministic) or backgammon (where randomness and skill play off of each other)?

2) Is life more like a marathon (where endurance reigns supreme) or a sprint (where episodic bursts of energy need to be followed by periods of rest and rejuvenation)?

My bias and response to these questions is obvious from the diagram above (inspired by weekend conversation with a new and cherished friend, Jerzy).

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Anyone interested in having a fulfilling career ought to read The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman, one of Silicon Valley's exemplary and visionary entrepreneurs behind successes such as Paypal and LinkedIn. However, if you don't have time to ready the book, take a quick look at the following slides which do a phenomenal job of delivering the key messages in the book. ENJOY!